Gadgetory

hey I'm Matthew Muscovy AK from C net and today we're going to take a look at the Teac aah oh one this is a compact stereo integrated amplifier that's currently selling for around four hundred and fifty dollars the Teac is a good-looking amp in a small package with a brush metal front and a plastic cabinet compared to a full sized AV receiver the front panel is dead simple with just the volume knob a headphone jack source selector and a power button well it's not quite as small as the NuForce dia or quite as pretty as the Peachtree audio deco 65 the TX strikes a good balance between the two and it's certainly going to look nice in your TV cabinet the included remote is it nearly as nice it has the annoying bubble like buttons that are usually found on cheaper devices and they just don't respond consistently to button presses so you're left hitting some buttons over and over again you also notice that there's no power button on the remote so the only way to turn it on and off is via the front panel button that means if you're using it in your living room with the universal remote you'll probably want to leave the TI powered on which isn't ideal there are four inputs on the back to digital audio inputs including one optical in one coaxial and two stereo analog inputs what's neat about the optical input is that it makes it easy to use the Teac as an AV receiver replacement at a much much smaller size just connect all your HDMI sources to your TV and connect the TV's optical audio output to the Teac and the TF will be able to amplify all your living room devices as long as you're okay sticking with stereo sound another perk is that the a HL one has a dedicated subwoofer output which is lacking on many of its competitors while you can often still use a subwoofer with those other amps using speaker level inputs the dedicated output is more convenient and leads to less wire clutter there's also a USB port on the back that you can connect directly to a computer which not only lets you play back your mp3 collection but also allows you to playback high resolution audio files as long as you have the right software what you won't find on the aho one is any kind of wireless capabilities such as Wi-Fi airplay or Bluetooth that's not a huge loss as you can always add that later with an Apple TV or a Bluetooth receiver although it's worth pointing out that the excellent na dhih dhih 3020 has Bluetooth built in for about the same price with a compact amp like this a lot of people might be skeptical about how it sounds but we found it to have excellent sound quality resident audiophile Steve Guttenberg gave it a listen with the wide range of speakers from pioneers budget SPFs 52 tower speakers to PSBs image t sixes and the TX sounded excellent no matter what we match it up with there's also no reason to worry about power with the little amp as the aho one got plenty loud in our medium-sized room with all the speakers we test it Steve even compared the TX paired up with pioneers tower speakers to the similarly priced Harman Kardon sound bar and as you'd expect the separate speaker sounded much better especially with music so if you're looking for a simple sound bar alternative that performs a lot better the tak ha1 can deliver with affordable speakers the big question to ask yourself is whether it's worth getting the Teac versus some of the stiff competition Sony's STR DN 840 is a full-size AV receiver they cost about the same but supports 7.2 channels has six HDMI inputs and built-in airplay Bluetooth and Wi-Fi if you don't mind the size it's hard to argue that it's not a better value for livingroom use if you want to stick with the smaller integrated amp na DS d30 20 is a little more expensive but I'd say it's worth the extra cost with a nicer remote sleeker design and built-in Bluetooth so altogether while we really liked a lot of what the T Ike had to offer it has a few flaws that keeping from being as recomendable as a similar NAD 3020 I'm Matthew moscovia and this is the T ech aho one you